Several weeks after the eventful apple-butter boiling at the Reist

farm, Aunt Rebecca invited the Reist family to spend a Sunday at her

home.

"I ain't goin', Mom," Philip announced. "I don't like it there. Dare I

stay home with Millie?"

"Mebbe Millie wants to come along," suggested his mother.

"Ach, I guess not this time. Just you go and Phil and I'll stay and

tend the house and feed the chickens and look after things."

"Well, I'm goin'!" spoke up Amanda. "Aunt Rebecca's funny and bossy but

I like to go to her house, it's so little and cute, everything."

"Cute," scoffed the boy. "Everything's cute to a girl. You dare go, I

won't! Last time I was there I picked a few of her honeysuckle flowers

and pulled that stem out o' them to get the drop of honey that's in

each one, and she caught me and slapped my hand--mind you! Guess next

she'll be puttin' up some scare-bees to keep the bees off her flowers.

But say, Manda, if she gives you any of them little red and white

striped peppermint candies like she does still, sneak me a few."

"Humph! You don't go to see her but you want her candy! I'd be ashamed,

Philip Reist!"

"Hush, hush," warned Mrs. Reist. "Next you two'll be fightin', and on a

Sunday, too."

The girl laughed. "Ach, Mom, guess we both got the tempers that goes

with red hair. But it's Sunday, so I'll be good. I'm glad we're goin'

to Aunt Rebecca. That's a nice drive."

Aunt Rebecca lived alone in a cottage at the edge of Landisville, a

beautiful little town several miles from the Reist farm at Crow Hill.

During her husband's life they lived on one of the big farms of

Lancaster County, where she slaved in the manual labor of the great

fields. Many were the hours she spent in the hot sun of the tobacco

fields, riding the planter in the early spring, later hoeing the rich

black soil close to the little young plants, in midsummer finding and

killing the big green tobacco worms and topping and suckering the

plants so that added value might be given the broad, strong leaves.

Then later in the summer she helped the men to thread the harvested

stalks on laths and hang them in the long open shed to dry.

Aunt Rebecca had married Jonas Miller, a rich man. All the years of

their life together on the farm seemed a visible verification of the

old saying, "To him that hath shall be given." A special Providence

seemed to hover over their acres of tobacco. Storms and destructive

hail appeared to roam in a swath just outside their farm. The Jonas

Miller tobacco fields were reputed to be the finest in the whole Garden

Spot county, and the Jonas Miller bank account grew correspondingly

fast. But the bank account, however quickly it increased, failed to

give Jonas Miller and his wife full pleasure, unless, as some say, the

mere knowledge of possession of wealth can bring pleasure to miserly

hearts. For Jonas Miller was, in the vernacular of the Pennsylvania

Dutch, "almighty close." Millie, Reists' hired girl, said," That there

Jonas is too stingy to buy long enough pants for himself. I bet he gets

boys' size because they're cheaper, for the legs o' them always just

come to the top o' his shoes. Whoever lays him out when he's dead once

will have to put pockets in his shroud for sure! And he's made poor

Becky just like him. It ain't in her family to be so near; why, Mrs.

Reist is always givin' somebody something! But mebbe when he dies once

and his wife gets the money in her hand she'll let it fly."




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